One of the warmest and sharpest composer and musician, Slonimsky was a delight to be around and during his life conducted premieres of works by many 20th century composers including Stravinksy. In this recording, he refers to his book, "The Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns", which nowadays can be found in paperback. Slonimsky was the only person I knew personally that was born in the 19th century and recognized both Ives (he made the first recording of Ives in 1934 and was conducting Ives as early as 1930) and Zappa as great musical geniuses. Hopefully, this recording can convey to those that had never been fortunate to spend time with this man, some of the amazing characteristics of his wondeful personality.